[an army airship intended for Afghanistan made a trial flight over New Jersey]

I saw it three weeks ago and thought it was the Met Life airship. It seemed to be faster than an airship. Soon they will be armed with rockets and bombs to use against us. The Government hates us because we want to cut taxes and reduce the size of government. For this they want to kill us.

Because that's any different then the warplanes and choppers armed with missiles and bombs that are already in service? Also, it's missiles, not rockets. In military terms rockets are unguided and typically not used by modern warplanes anymore and presumably and warairships.

Although his comment on it being faster than an airship is actually a legit comment as a properly designed airship with powerful enough engines can get moving a lot faster then you would expect. I believe the Zeppelin NT can get up to 75 mph according to wikipedia so a fast army airship is not out of the question.

[…] Soon they will be armed with rockets and bombs to use against us.[…]

Yeah, because the US Army doesn’t have any planes, helicopters, tanks and other weapon systems yet. They have to wait until they have an airship and then they will immediately start killing their own citizens… Sounds really plausible.

Not at all. Helium airships- over 170 of them- were used by the Americans during World War Two. They were so staggeringly successful- tens of thousands of ship convoys escorted, with only two ships lost during the entire war, and the highest mission readiness of any air unit- that they were used well into the Cold War, finally discontinued in 1963. Their mission, early warning for Soviet nuclear bombers and hunting diesel-electric submarines, evaporated as the bombers were replaced with ICBMs and diesel-electrics were replaced with nuclear subs. It rendered them obsolete.

This airship- the LEMV- is actually the first production hybrid airship, which is a hybrid between an airplane and airship. It's going to Afghanistan to conduct super-surveillance for weeks on end without landing and/or haul heavy cargo.

@Greater Good
Oh, you're right, the Hindenburg was simultaneously the end of using airships as flying luxury liners and the end of giant rigid airships. But in no way did that impede the military from using smaller non-rigid helium airships, though.

I'm excited about the LEMV because it's a whole new kind of aircraft, and also because it holds great promise as a super-cheap way of hauling extremely heavy cargoes very long distances to places without airports or helipads, at the speed of a helicopter. The civilian applications in northern Canada and Alaska alone are particularly exciting.